Exploring visual journalism

Australia

Asaro Mud Men from the Asaro Valley in Papua New Guinea’s eastern highlands perform, for the first time outside their home, their rituals for visitors at the Australian Museum in Sydney on September 29, 2016. The eerie show is traditionally intended to intimidate their enemies in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, with the men donning masks and white clay on their bodies and elongating their fingers with bamboo, they perform a dance with the warriors holding bows and arrows.

Australians celebrated Australia Day on Tuesday. The holiday marks the anniversary of the arrival and landing of the First Fleet of convict ships from Great Britain, and the raising of the Union Jack at Sydney Cove by Captain Arthur Phillip, on Jan 26, 1788. Day nine of the 2016 Australian Open also fell on Australia Day.

Baltimore is one of the latest world cities to be turned on to large-scale artistic light displays. The inaugural Light City Baltimore, modeled after the Vivid Sydney festival in Australia, is planned for seven days this spring. These photos of the Sydney festival and six others around the world offer a glimpse of the type of treatments the Inner Harbor and locations in five city neighborhoods might get.

That would be the epic movie tagline for the Rivenbark family, of Howard County, who recently returned from a 13-month trip around the globe. The family —- consisting of mom Julie, dad Tim, Tyler, 12, and Kara, 10 — sold their house, and their cars; Julie quit her job, Tim took a leave of absence. And the kids did their homeschool work while on safari in Africa, in a hotel in Nepal or whenever they could find time.

The family kept a near-daily blog, which was fed by stunning photos from Julie and fun, educational videos from Tyler. A short documentary about the Rivenbark’s trip is below.